


Content

by magelette



Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:35:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28231767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magelette/pseuds/magelette
Summary: While stuck back in the castle one night, while his foster-brother rides out on yet another quest, Cei questions the choices he's made in his life.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 18
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Content

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Verecunda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verecunda/gifts).



Cei was elbow-deep in soapwort suds when it occurred to him. This was not the life Cei, son of Cynyr Forkbeard, had considered for himself. Twenty years ago, when he and Wart were still young and idealistic idiots, Cei had thought they’d reign together over their small holding in the cantref of Pebidiog, ensuring that their farmers and families were well taken care of, and wanted for nothing. Young Cei’s dreams had been full of guts and glory, where he and his foster brother defended their people from invading tramorwyr from across the water, and in the calmer seasons, ensured that the fields produced bountiful harvests. He and Wart would marry local girls – sisters, ideally, so that they would be blood-kin and foster kin – and raise their many children together at Caer Gawch. And in the evenings, they’d drink mulled wine or ale, reminiscing about their great deeds in their youth.

They were lucky, in Pebidiog. The Laigin, who had moved in from across the water, after the Romans left, had integrated peacefully with those who already lived there. Pebidiog was far enough from the wealth of the copper and tin mines that no Roman villa had been built there. The hill fort that Cei’s grandfather had expanded into Caer Gawch had existed for hundreds of years, its earthen walls strengthened with the local sandstone over the generations. Even the tower of the caer itself was stone, something Cei’s grandfather had considered his crowning achievement, rather than the wood of some of the other hill forts.

Life had been hard, but slow. Cei had had chores all his life, but they were a lord’s chores: managing, making, defending. Cei’s hands had always worn the calluses of both shovel and sword. He could plow a field – or at least supervise it – as well as he could wield a sword in battle. There had always been expectations of what his duties would be as the lord of the caer. While young Cei hadn’t expected to be scrubbing the big cauldrons in the kitchens, he hadn’t expected his rangy little ginger-haired foster brother to grow to be high king of Prydein either. Cei had been the one afforded the most luxuries: a slightly better horse, first pick of falcons in the falconry, first one to wear their clothes and use their practice swords. Wart, at about two years younger, had always been second in line and slightly overlooked. To have runty little Wart chosen as high king, and to have the bastard actually ashamed of it, trying to turn it down… 

Cei had never loved his foster brother more, or felt more protective of him. Maybe that was why he gave up his destiny as lord of Caer Gawch, left the shadow of his father, and trusted his luck to Arthur’s destiny. Wart. Arthur. High King.

There was, at least, a reason for Cei to be scrubbing cauldrons in the kitchens like some spit boy. It was the same reason that found the queen of Camelot herself rolling out dough for the bread ovens, a vast apron wrapped around her waist and a faded cloth keeping her dark hair out of her eyes. Wart – King Arthur, now – had ridden out a fortnight ago to rid a village on the borderlands of their problem with bandits. As soon as Arthur left, some autumnal plague hit the castle, rendering most of the inhabitants useless. Luckily, both Cei and Gwenhwyfar were used to stepping in when they needed to, since both were born to smaller, more remote holdings. 

Usually, the king’s departure meant Cei stepping up his duties as seneschal, helping Gwenhwyfar manage both the household and the town that supported the great castle. It wasn’t the glamorous life he’d expected, but it was at least a good one. And while his days of adventuring were behind him, due to a festering wound from the last time he rescued Gwenhwyfar, he still envied Arthur his whole, hale body, and the fact that his foster brother could endure long, hard rides into the countryside, and still fight off raiders when he arrived.

Bards still sang stories of those early adventures together: how Cei, taller than a tree, could fight for nine days and nine nights without eating and drinking; how a blow from Cei’s sword would deliver a death knell every time; how Cei’s very hands radiated with the heat of the sun. It made Cei smile now, when he thought of it, but then he remembered the warriors they’d lost on some of those early campaigns, as they tried to solidify Arthur’s hold on the land. No one had expected Arthur to be Uther Pendraig’s lost heir. No one had expected the old lords to give up control over their lands to an untried upstart, either. Cei had gladly gone to battle at his foster brother’s side, ready to support Wart in whatever way he could. For the guts and glory.

Guts mean something different when you see a man’s entrails wrapped around your sword, as you’re pulling it from his belly. Glory means nothing when the blood is pumping so hard and fast out of your leg that you think your very life force itself with pour out with it. Or that you’ll lose your leg. He wasn’t happy that his adventuring days were more or less over, due to a leg that pained him when he was in the saddle for too long, or scar tissue on his thigh that made it hard for him to fight as deftly as he once had. But he was, at least, content.

As lord’s son, Cei knew he would’ve had the pick of the girls on their holdings, or possibly the daughter of one of the local holdings who caught his eye. Arthur, as high king, had cast his eye a little higher until it settled on Gwenhwyfar of Kernow, far to the south and west. Gwenhwyfar’s family, while descended from Roman provincial lords, had long since lost their wealth. Their alliances and some antique table had been the greatest selling point when Arthur was first considering marriage. Gwenhwyfar’s wit and beauty had sealed the deal. Arthur had fallen head over heels for Gwenhwyfar from the moment he saw her, all eighteen years of him and fresh from the victory of uniting all the lords of Prydein under one rule. How Cei had hated her at first, for stealing away the attentions of his beloved brother. And how he’d grown to love her in the years that followed, for all those shared nights pouring over accounts and attempting to hold the castle together while Arthur upheld the kingdom in the field. Cei had always been first to volunteer whenever Gwenhwyfar was kidnapped, to the point that Arthur named Cei her personal guard in their fifth year of marriage.

Maybe, in another time and place, the love that burned within him would have inspired more illicit moments, actual attempts at seduction. But as Cei had learned over the years, he didn’t have the gift of words that Arthur did, or the long-lashed brown eyes that women found so irresistible. “Doe eyes,” their yearmates had always jeered, when they were growing up. Gentle eyes, eyes that shone with the compassion and wisdom of a great king.

“You’re wearing your thoughtful face, Cei,” Gwenhwyfar said, breaking the companionable silence. “Have you lost the battle against that pot? I need it if I’m going to make soup for supper tonight.” With one last floury pat, she scooped up the loaf of bread in front of her with the wooden peel and shoved it into the hot oven next to the hearth.

Cei looked down, surprised that his repetitive scrubbing had indeed relieved the cauldron of the caked-on remains from last night’s stew. Usually, it would have been scrubbed clean before the cooks retired for the night, but with half the castle down with this damned plague, those who were left standing pitched in where they could. Pots and other assorted kitchenware could wait.

“Just thinking…about us. And Wart.”

Gwenhwyfar arched one of her thick black brows. “Wart? What has my beloved done now?” There was a wistful look on her face now. The lords were once again clamoring for Arthur to take a new queen, as Gwenhwyfar had proven, time and time again, unable to bear a child to term. He was glad when both Arthur and Gwenhwyfar admitted they were no longer trying for an heir of their bodies.

“Our beloved,” Cei corrected with a slight smile, “has left us to toil in the kitchens as he adventures.”

“Sleeping outside on the hard ground, battling tired and hungry bandits and biting insects at the same time… I think I’ll stay in the kitchens,” Gwenhwyfar countered, dusting her floury hands off on her apron.

Cei leaned against the large wooden work table in the kitchen, shifting his weight so that his stiff leg didn’t hurt as much. He remembered sleeping wrapped up in a blanket, hoping the cold and exhaustion would send him into a deep, uninterruptable sleep. He remembered the bugs and the dirt and the hunger, the pain in his lower back from sitting in a saddle so long, the weight of his chain shirt and leathers bowing his shoulders and hanging off the back of his neck. Adventure had been wonderful when they were younger. Even now, Wart was well within his right to refuse a quest or a plea for aid. He had younger, stronger, more adept knights who could act in his name. And yet, Arthur rode out whenever he could, knowing he could trust Cei and Gwenhwyfar to manage the day to day business of ruling the kingdom in his place.

Because that’s who Cei was: seneschal to a kingdom. He wasn’t the lord he’d wanted to be as a child; in all honesty, his work was far harder. Did he regret the choices he made?

Cei thought of his cold bed, sometimes, and the lack of anyone to warm it except his beloved hounds. He thought of how often Arthur was advised to put aside his own wife, often in front of her, as if Gwenhwyfar herself wasn’t there. He thought of the pressures on both his brother and sister to be a pair of model rules, to show only strength and never weakness. He thought of the nights Gwenhwyfar had cried on his shoulder, all because she lost another pregnancy, and those mornings when Arthur had appeared, red-eyed and silent for their morning council.

“Would you change it? The choices you made?” Cei tried to keep his voice light, but from the look Gwenhwyfar gave him, he knew he hadn’t fooled her at all.

She at least appeared to seriously consider his question. The furrowed brow she wore now was the same one he saw when she wrestled with numbers as they tried to plan for the winter, or when she weighed her options of how to fix the roads without overtaxing their citizens.

“I chose…” she began. “Did I choose? Father always intended me for the highest match possible, so I knew that my options were limited.” She rested her chin in her hand, leaning on the work table as he did. Her eyes, still a bright, beautiful blue, seemed to be staring across the years. She laughed a little, but it sounded like a pained laugh. “I don’t know that Arthur or I ever had choices. Not like you have, Cei.”

Cei looked down at his left leg, stretched out as much as it could be so that it wouldn’t stiffen up. He thought of other scars that striped his body, as well as every dark memory that he held in his heart. Securing a kingdom hadn’t been all glory. It had been mostly guts, pained groans, and fountains of blood.

“I’m…content,” he said. “I chose, and I think…I’m content with it.”

Gwenhwyfar turned her eyes back to him, looking as if she understood. 

“I wish you’d had a choice,” he continued in a softer voice.

“Arthur chose, and I think I’m glad he did. I too…am content.”

She came around the table to lean against him, sister to brother. They’d carried this burden of supporting Arthur together for over fifteen years now. Those years hadn’t brought him an epic love that lit the ages, or wealth and fame that would survive him beyond the grave. Instead, he’d deepened his bond with his brother, and he’d learned to love his brother’s wife as the sister he’d never had. He had family that trusted him and loved him. Being content was definitely better than the dreams of his youth.


End file.
